Nathalie Dessay (Soprano)
French soprano
Natalie Dessay is one the stars of today’s operatic world, thrilling audiences
as both a singer and an actress. Now an admired interpreter of
bel canto and lyric heroines such as Lucia di Lammermoor, Marie (La
Fille du regiment), Amina (La sonnambula), Pamina (Die
Zauberflote), Manon, Juliette and Ophelie (Hamlet), Dessay
originally made her reputation with showpiece coloratura roles such as
Offenbach’s Olympia, Mozart’s Queen of the Night and Strauss’ Zerbinetta,
Born in Lyons, Natalie Dessay grew up in Bordeaux. She first dreamed of
becoming a dancer, but later studied acting and singing at the Bordeaux
Conservatoire. She progressed with extraordinary rapidity, completing five
years’ worth of study in just one year and graduating with First Prize at the
age of twenty. In 1989, after a brief period in the chorus of the Theatre du
Capitole de Toulouse, she entered France’s first Concours des Voix nouvelles and
won second prize. This led Dessay to further studies at the Paris Opйra and also
brought her to the attention of the agent Therese Cedelle – still her agent today
– and to her first major engagements as a soloist.
In 1992 she sang her
first Olympia in Offenbach’s Contes d’Hoffmann at Paris’s Opйra
Bastille in a staging by Roman Polanski. The next year she was invited to the
Vienna Staatsoper to sing Blondchen (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail). In
1993 she was Olympia in the opening production for the rebuilt Opera de Lyon and
by 2001 she had performed the role in eight different stagings, including her
debut appearance at La Scala. The 1990s also brought the Queen of the Night at
Aix-en-Provence, Ophelie (Hamlet) in Geneva (she also sang the role at
London’s Royal Opera House and at Barceona’s Liceo in 2003, where the production
was filmed for a Virgin Classics DVD), Aminta (Die schweigsame Frau) in
Vienna, Fiakermilli (Arabella) for her debut at the New York Met –
followed by Olympia and Zerbinetta, Lakmй at the Opйra Comique – a role she
recorded for EMI Classics with Michel Plasson, Eurydice in Offenbach’s
Orphee aux Enfers in Lyon (recorded for EMI Classics), and, in Paris,
Morgana in Handel’s Alcina and the title role in Stravinsky’s Le
Rossignol (also to be seen on a Virgin Classics DVD). Conductors for these
appearances included Pierre Boulez, James Levine, James Conlon, William Christie
and Marc Minkowski.
In 2001 the
soprano’s career entered a new phase when she realised a long-held ambition to
perform Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, a role she subsequently sang
in 2004 in Chicago, in 2006 at the Bastille in a powerful staging by Andrei
Serban, and in a new production for the opening of the New York Metropolitan’s
2007-8 season on 24th September 2007, which was broadcast on a giant
screens at Lincoln Centre and Times Square. She also recorded the French version
of the opera for Virgin Classics. More Donizetti, La Fille du regiment,
provided a triumph for her in 2007 in Laurent Pelly’s witty staging in London,
Vienna and New York.The British performances
led to a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Dessay,
and to a Virgin Classics DVD which has proved an international bestseller.
In 2008 she
returned to the Metropolitan for revivals of Lucia and La Fille
du regiment, which was
broadcast live in high definition to hundreds of cinemas around the world. In
the autumn of the same year she triumphed as Manon (a role she first sang in
Geneva in 2004) at Chicago Lyric Opera opposite the Des Grieux of Jonas
Kaufmann; this was in David McVicar’s production of Massenet’s opera, which was
recorded for a Virgin Classics DVD in Barcelona with Rolando
Villazуn as Des
Grieux.
January 2009 brought Natalie
Dessay’s first Mйlisande at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, directed by
Laurent Pelly (a DVD of this Pelleas et Melisande will be released in
November 2009). More firsts follow in 2009 with Violetta in the summer in Santa
Fe and Musetta at the Opйra de Paris in the autumn. Paris will also mount a new
production of La Sonnambula for her in 2010. Her first appearances in La Sonnambula came in
2004 in Lausanne, Bordeaux, La Scala and Vienna (with Juan Diego Flуrez) and her
interpretation of Amina was recorded during concert performances in Lyon in
November 2006 and released by Virgin Classics in autumn 2007.
Dessay signed her
first exclusive contract with EMI Classics/Virgin Classics in 1994 and, in
addition to the recordings already mentioned, her catalogue includes discs of
Mozart (a collection of arias and his Mass in C minor), songs and arias by
Strauss, works by Handel and Monteverdi, Bach cantatas conducted by
Emmanuelle Haim and
collections of Italian arias, French arias and Vocalises. Her 2 CD and DVD
compilations Le Miracle d’une voix, released in 2006, have proved
an enormous success, selling over 250,000 copies, each documenting her prowess
as a singer and as an actress.
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